The Collected Stories of Colette by Colette

discourages me. Come here, so I can tell you about it. You’re still the one I tell the most, because you don’t have any children. You understand better.”
    “. . . !”
    Yes, it does make sense! You don’t have any children, you still have a mama, you get scolded, you storm, you rage, and you have the reputation of being unreasonable: Mama shrugs her shoulders when she talks about you, like with me . . . That pleases me. That gives me confidence.”
    “. . .”
    “There’s no need to apologize, I don’t do it on purpose . . . Come on, we’ll go sit by the fire: I’ve had enough of sitting under these stairs, too! There, now. Mama discourages me. I can’t seem to make her understand certain things.”
    “. . . ?”
    “Serious things, things about life. Can you believe she just bought me a hat to go to school in! . . . Oh, yes, it’s true, you don’t know, you’re not from the country . . . In Montigny, the girls in the public school never wear hats, except in the summer for the sun, and I’m only telling you this under the ceiling of secrecy . . .”
    “. . . !”
    “The ceiling , I’m telling you! The proof is that you don’t say it in another room . . . So, I’m telling you under the ceiling of secrecy that we go ‘Boo!’ in the street at the students of the nuns, because they wear hats to school. No repeating?”
    “. . . !”
    “Good. So then Mama buys me a hat. And so I make a face at the hat! Naturally, Mama starts a two-hour lecture, which has nothing to do with the point: that I’m more than ten years old, and that I’m almost a young lady, and that I should set the example of an irreproachable appearance . . . She finally ended up upsetting me. I lost my patience, I told her that it didn’t concern her, that my life at school was a special life which parents don’t understand anything about, et cetera . . . ‘Tell me, Mama,’ I said to her, ‘do you tell Papa what he should do at his office? It’s the same thing with me at school. I have a very noticeable position at school, a very delicate position, because I have personality, as Mademoiselle says. To hear you, Mama, I should only concern myself with my family! You send me to school, I spend half my life there. Well, that counts, half of my life . . . School’s like another world, you don’t talk about it the same: what’s appropriate here isn’t at school, and if I tell you I shouldn’t go to class in the winter with a hat, it’s because I shouldn’t wear a hat! You see, Mama, there are things you sense, there are nuances!’ I spelled this all out to her very calmly, all at once, so that she didn’t have the time to get a word in edgewise, because you know how mamas are, don’t you? They fly off the handle, and besides, they don’t have a sense of proportion.”
    “. . . ?”
    “I mean, they rant and rave over everything, as much for a broken glass as for something very, very bad. Mine especially. She’s easily affected. Afterward, she was looking at me as if I fell from the moon, and she said in a soft voice, ‘My God, this child . . . this child . . .’ She looked so unhappy and so astonished, you would have thought I was the one who had scolded her. So much so that I put my arm around her like this and I rocked her up against me, saying, ‘There . . . there . . . my little darling, there! . . .’ It ended very happy.”
    “. . . ?”
    “Yes, we are! we are angry, but for a different reason. The story of the hat is from yesterday. Today . . . here, look at my finger.”
    “. . . !”
    “Yes, a cut, a big one, and the nail is split. It has hydrogen peroxide and I don’t know what else on it. And here, on my cheek, you can see a red burn; it stings. And my hair, can’t you see, on my forehead? Smell it: It must still smell a little like when they singe the pig in the square. These are all today’s ordeals, which got Mama and me angry with